Barbara Brotman

Barbara Brotman is a writer for the metropolitan news section's special projects team and the paper's Outdoors Adviser columnist.

Her 2006 stories chronicling the finals months of hospice care for a retired Chicago insurance executive won a distinguished writing award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, honorable mention in the National Press Club Awards and a Best Feature award from the Chicago Journalists Association.

She was a columnist and staff writer for the weekly Woman News section from February 1994 to August 2003. From September 2003 to June 2004, she held a John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University.

She joined the Tribune in February 1978, writing for features sections and the Tempo section. After moving to the metropolitan news section as a general assignment reporter in 1982, she wrote the "About the Town" column for the Tribune from January 1984 until August 1989, for which she won a UPI International Award for Illinois Newspapers for Column Writing and a Peter Lisagor Award for column writing, given by Sigma Delta Chi, the Society of Professional Journalists. She then covered the abortion issue from both a local and national perspective. In April 1990 she rejoined the Tempo staff as a feature writer.

She received honorable mention in 2002 from the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, and is also a past recipient of the Chicago Tribune's award for Outstanding Professional Performance, for her evocative writing style and ability to capture the mood and feel of Chicago life and people.

Brotman was born in New York and graduated from Queens College. Brotman, her husband, Chicago Tribune photographer Chuck Berman, and their two daughters live in Oak Park, Ill.